Once Upon A Time
by yourmainsqueeze
Summary: Sakura remembers how her story started and imagines her could have been fairytale. Team seven centric drabble from Sakura's point of view.


A/N: What's my issue with writing all this angst? This story was supposed to be happy. Enjoy if you can.

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Sakura enjoys working overtime at the hospital because it keeps her occupied and because by the time she leaves the streets are empty. She gets to walk home in the twilight, amongst the fireflies and her thoughts, completely undisturbed.

However, she likes it considerably less on nights like this, when her thoughts veer towards the melancholy.

She stops in the middle of the street, across from the Ichiraku Ramen Bar, and beneath the welcoming banners, with an eerie sort of clarity she can she them. Naruto is in between Sasuke and herself. They lean on the bar, propped on stools with their feet dangling a few inches above the ground, and bask in their youth. Time has yet to separate them and they are still ignorant to the pain of their own abandonment.

She stays awhile longer, until their feet touch the ground and their backs are covered by vests that mark them Jounin. They are discussing the odds of them staying together as a squad after they pass the exam to become anbu. Sasuke smirks while Naruto and she burst into laughter because who would dare separate them?

Sakura swallows hard at the sight of her memories and desires come to life. She is about to walk over and join in on the laughter when she blinks and they disappear.

Since she has already started the process of subjecting herself to the hurt of the past she decides that there is no point in fighting it now. She has to let it run its course or else it will haunt her for days. Putting her feet on automatic, Sakura lets go and gives free reign to her subconscious fantasies.

They are walking beside her now, fully grown and smiling. She puts them in anbu gear because she's sure that would have been their path had things stayed simple. They've just returned from a mission and they're laughing about something that happened during the mission, something stupid that Naruto did. Sasuke throws his arm around her shoulders. Naruto bounds around a few steps ahead reenacting his antics for the sake of their enjoyment. They will accompany her to her destination.

Sakura blinks back the beginning of tears as she takes in her new surroundings. She is not at all surprised to see that her feet have taken her to their old training grounds. She simultaneously hates and loves this place.

When she's here she can remember everything, every sweaty spar, every bruised knee, and every triumphant smile. She loves what she can relive here, loves the wonder and friendship that this place revealed to them. But then that's why she hates it too, because she can see so clearly all the things she should have now. It's such a curse to find solace in the things that hurt you so terribly.

She hates what Sasuke took away from them and what he forced upon them. He took their childhood naivety and made them grow up. He pulled them from a world that made sense and pushed them into someplace dark, someplace they are all still struggling to find their way out of.

Sakura sighs because she cannot count the times she has sat here and done this to herself. She gets so worked up over things that she is just now beginning to understand are way beyond her realm of control.

Getting up to leave, Sakura carefully pats all the dust from her skirt because she doesn't need any physical reminders of tonight when she wakes up all puffy eyed in the morning.

Glancing over her shoulder for one last look, Sakura smiles at what she sees. They are all balanced on their haunches, teetering slightly, forming a tight circle around the intense battle plan Sasuke is drawing in the dirt. They are all so close their heads nearly touch and it is this closeness and this excitement that she really admires. Her smile broadens. They are a team.

By the time Sakura reaches her house she is emotionally drained. She lets her head rest on the door and allows her hands to hang limply at her side. She wonders when they stopped being a team. She muses that it was probably the same time they stopped eating ramen together, stopped scribbling their plots in the dirt together, stopped laughing together.

Sakura imagines that when she opens the door they will both be there. She glares at the fine, wood grains of her door willing it to be true, daring it to be any different then what she wants. Naruto is rummaging through the kitchen for the ramen that she keeps just for him and Sasuke is sitting at the table doing his best to feign annoyance. When she walks in Naruto immediately launches into a rant about their mission. She listens attentively while searching out Sasuke's eyes. Naruto reaches the climax of his story, Sasuke smiles at her, and she laughs out loud.

When Sakura finally opens the door the house is silent and still, and it is obvious that she is alone.

She closes the door and puts her back to it with a not so gentle thud. She slides down until she reaches the bottom and lets her head drop to her knees. Her story wasn't supposed to end like this, in the quiet dark. She wants the bright happy ending that her beginning promised. She wants her boys and she wants their smiles.


End file.
